The Flanders Expo (Ghent) will be the place to be this week-end for all sci-fi, comics, anime and cosplay fans! FACTS, the Belgian Comic Con will be held from Saturday 22 (10:00 to 19:00) to Sunday 23(10:00 to 17:00) October. This year, all the halls of the Flanders Expo will be used. As every year, famous actors will be present. Visitors can meet David Hasselhoff, Sean Astin, Sylvester McCoy, Erika Eleniak, Kristin Bauer and many others in hall 4. Many artists will also be present: Alvaro Martinez Bueno, Lucio Parrillo, Stephen B. Scott, Jérôme Alquié,... Visitors will have a lot of things to see and to do during the two days: cosplay contests, fan village, workshops, guests, shopping, ... and even speed dates. Hall 2 will be fully dedicated to gaming with many stands where visitors can try the latest titles from big publishers and play retro games... Arcade Belgium will occupy booth 217 with 20 arcade machines set on freeplay including all time classics such as Time Crisis II, OutRun2 SP, DoDonPachi Daioujou Tamashii, Strider Hiryu 2, Puyo Puyo Fever, The Simpsons, Teenage Muntant Hero Turtles - Turles in Time, Hyper Street Fighter II, etc... We'll organize two free tournaments: a Spawn - In the Demon's Hand 4-player battle royal on Saturday and a Garou - Mark of the Wolves tourney on Sunday. Registration at 13:30 and tournaments at 14:00.

Capcom starts today a location test of a new arcade game: Legend Baseball. It's a realistic simulator machine featuring a pitching machine. The player stands in front of a big screen where a virtual pitcher throws a ball. A real ball leaves a hole below the screen and the player must hit it. Thanks to sensors, the game analyses his shot (speed, direction,...) and reproduces the move on the screen. The location test is held at the Game Land Chiharadai shop (Chiba).

Good and bad news: Arcade Street, the famous amusement arcade in Paris, will not close its doors on October 10 as we announced on September 1st, that's the good news. The bad news is that the closure is not canceled but only postponed for a few days since the arcade will close permanently on Thursday, October 20th. Accordingly, schedules change from October 10 on; the doors will be open from Monday to Saturday between 17:00 and 22:00. With its underground atmosphere and its urban decoration, this arcade had become a hangout spot for all fans of arcade games whatever their favourite genre is. Arcade Street features many fighting games, shooting games and beat'em up's as well as uncommon machines such as Darius Burst Another Chronicle EX, pop'n music 19 Tune Street and DanceDanceRevolution X. We will remember the hectic atmosphere at Street Fighter and Windjammers tournaments. Arcade Street is also well-known for operating exclusive games in France like The King of Fighters XIII Climax, BlazBlue Continuum Shift II and Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown. After 6 years of existence, the lease contract has come to an end and the team wants to continue its mission differently (we have no details yet except that it shall be arcade related but won't be another arcade). So this is not a "goodbye" but rather a "see you later". Anyway, many thanks to Anatole, Abou and Nicolas for all those years of happiness. What you have accomplished is impressive and we wish you a lot of success for the rest of your adventures. See you soon! Come on guys, there are still two weeks to go to have fun one last time!

Sega launches a new version of its musical game CHUNITHM today. It's named CHUNITHM AIR and its starts a collaboration with Key's visual novel AIR. This new version introduces new songs in Anime & POP, Touhou Project, Variety and Original categories. There are also new characters and new features: nameplates and limit exceeded. This upgrade also brings changes in the player data (level, titles, map will not be saved). Former WORLD'S END songs will no longer be playable but new songs will replace them.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Taito's train simulator series, a new Densha de Go! arcade game will be released in Spring 2017. Taito will present a real immersive game with a cabinet recreating the cab of a real train with authentic controls, three wide screens for the scenery and a touchscreen panel showing the various indicators of the control stand. Square Enix will supervise the visual works to ensure overwhelming quality graphics, the game engine features various weather conditions and different seasons. Furthermore, the game will feature realistic major railways such as the Yamanote Line. The mission system will offer the full experience of a train operator's day including taking care of passengers and time management. Famous railway-lines of Japan will be added from time to time through updates. Renketsu! Densha de GO!!, the smartphone puzzle game that will be released this Winter on Android and iOS will interact with the arcade game. Collaborations with nanoGauge, Jorudan Co. and Railfan magazine are planned.

Three days ago, Sega has surprised everyone with the announcement of a new Initial D arcade game! They revealed the first info about the game today. First the name: Initial D Arcade Stage Zero. The game will use a new cabinet (the same cabinet was used since Initial D Arcade Stage 4). It will feature a 6-speed speed shifter (instead of the sequential one). Sega also announced a new soundtrack maybe composed by songs from the latest Initial D movies as the game charadesign shown in the trailer is the same than in the movies... Maybe all the game will be based on them. There is also a renewing of the save system: save card is now AIME and not a proprietary one anymore (it means that you'll be able to use the same IC card for both Wangan Midnight and Initial D). You won't be able to use your Initial D 8 card. Initial D Arcade Stage Zero will be on pre-location test from August 4 to 7 at the following game centers: Sega GiGO Ikebukuro, Club Sega Shinjuku Nishiguchi and Sega Akihabara Building 1. It will be divided in two phases: on August 4 and 6: Time attack and on August 5 and 7: Nationwide competition. In competition mode, you can ask for a revenge race. Players will be sorted into teams according to the game center where they are. There are 6 players per group. Example: players 1-6: Red Suns 001, players 7-12: Red Suns 002, etc... They are divided like this: Red Suns: Sega GiGO Ikebukuro, Akina Speed Stars: Club Sega Shinjuku Nishiguchi and Night Kids: Sega Akihabara Building 1. Various goodies will be given at the location test: fans, stickers and clear files. A trailer of Initial D Arcade Stage Zero is available here.